Sudan Displacement Crisis Deepens as Four Million Returnees Face Second Wave of Survival Struggles in Devastated Communities

Three years into one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st century, Sudan’s displacement crisis has entered a grim new chapter. The United Nations International Organization for Migration reported this week that approximately 4 million people who were driven from their homes by the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces have begun returning to their areas of origin. But IOM Deputy Director General Sung Ah Lee delivered a sobering assessment, warning that these returnees have left camps and border areas only to find themselves facing another struggle for survival in communities shattered by fighting.

The returns are concentrated mainly in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, and in the neighboring Al Jazirah state, which was among the hardest hit during the peak of the conflict that erupted on April 15, 2023. At the height of the fighting, approximately 12 million people fled the most heavily affected areas, including Al Jazirah, Khartoum, Sennar, and Kordofan. Of those, an estimated 4.5 million crossed into neighboring countries, with Egypt, South Sudan, and Chad absorbing the largest numbers. An additional 9 million were internally displaced within Sudan’s borders.

The infrastructure those returnees are going back to barely exists. Homes are destroyed or occupied. Water systems are non-functional. Hospitals and clinics lack staff, medication, and equipment. Schools have been turned into makeshift military positions or simply abandoned. Agricultural land in Al Jazirah, historically one of Sudan’s most productive farming regions and the breadbasket that fed much of the country, was severely disrupted during the fighting, with irrigation systems and storage facilities damaged or destroyed.

International aid agencies operating in Sudan have consistently warned that the scale of need exceeds the resources available. Access for humanitarian workers remains dangerously restricted in many parts of the country, with both the SAF and RSF accused of blocking aid convoys and interfering with delivery. The UN’s World Food Program has said that famine conditions have taken hold in multiple regions of Sudan, making it one of the worst food security crises anywhere on Earth.

The political situation offers little hope for rapid resolution. The SAF and RSF have both rejected calls for a permanent ceasefire, and international mediation efforts led by the African Union, the United States, and Saudi Arabia have so far failed to produce a durable agreement. Without a political settlement, the conditions that created the displacement continue unchanged, meaning that returnees face not just destroyed infrastructure but the ongoing possibility of renewed violence.

For the countries hosting Sudanese refugees, the humanitarian burden is significant. Egypt, which received the largest number of Sudanese refugees across international borders, is itself navigating economic pressures stemming from the global energy shock and persistent currency challenges. South Sudan, still recovering from its own civil conflict, lacks the resources to adequately support the Sudanese displaced within its territory. Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world, has hosted hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees in camps near the border for years without adequate international support.

The situation demands that the international community not treat the beginning of returns as evidence that the crisis is resolving. IOM’s language about ‘another struggle for survival’ is a direct warning that premature reduction of humanitarian funding and attention could result in mass suffering among people who have already endured years of displacement. African Union member states, many of whom are stretched thin by their own domestic challenges, need sustained support from the international community to maintain the protection and services that displaced Sudanese people depend on.

Kenya has raised the issue in regional forums, calling for a more coordinated African response to the Sudan crisis that goes beyond statements of concern to concrete commitments on financing, refugee hosting, and diplomatic pressure on the warring parties. Whether that call gains traction among African governments preoccupied with their own economic and security challenges remains to be seen. For the millions of Sudanese who have returned home to find it destroyed, the answer cannot come soon enough.